


the light behind your eyes

by sparrowvanya



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I really am, No Incest, also i'm very sorry for this, i hate that i have to tag that, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26020459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowvanya/pseuds/sparrowvanya
Summary: “I heard a rumor-”A blast of bright white light. A gush of blood. A gasp for breath, an attempt at help, a failure.Vanya gets dragged out of the cabin, her sister’s blood starting to soak her shirt, too shocked at her own actions to try and figure out where everything went wrong.In which Allison doesn't make it out of the cabin.title from "the light behind your eyes" by my chemical romance
Relationships: The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	the light behind your eyes

_ “I heard a rumor-” _

_ A blast of bright white light. A gush of blood. A gasp for breath, an attempt at help, a failure. _

_ Vanya gets dragged out of the cabin, her sister’s blood starting to soak her shirt, too shocked at her own actions to try and figure out where everything went wrong. _

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

They burst into the room to find Allison on the floor in a puddle of her own blood.

There’s so much of it.

It stains her white shirt dark red, pooling around her on the wooden floor of the cabin and seeping into the cracks in the planks. 

_ There’s so much of it. _

She should be dead.

Against all odds, her eyelids flutter (just  _ barely _ ) as Luther moves to pick her up. As he holds her to his chest. As he gasps her name through his own sobs.

There’s so much blood, weeping from the gash in her neck, neatly severing her vocal cords, along with cutting a gash into one of her carotid arteries.

They’re too far from a hospital. (Too far from  _ anywhere. _ ) The blood is flowing too quickly to get there. 

Allison Hargreeves dies in her brother’s arms, with three more of them clustered around him, trying desperately to save her.

The blood never washes out of Luther’s coat. 

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The only logical conclusion is that either Vanya or Leonard (Harold, really) was the one who did it.

Theoretically, it would be Harold. He definitely had the criminal record to back it up. Diego doubted the other man would even hesitate to take one of them out if it fit in with his plans. 

So when Harold Jenkins is found dead, over two dozen knives in his chest, that entire view of his (the one he’s gone over again and again, theorized about, convinced himself of, dreamed of taking revenge over) is shattered in an instant. 

Jenkins hadn’t been in contact with anyone but Vanya and the rest of the Academy in days… and even then, it had really only been Vanya. Seeing as that pair of assassins were under order to protect him, it ruled them out. (And the knives weren’t exactly their style either. Both of them seemed like they’d prefer a quick shot to the head over  _ that many blades. _ )

It only left Vanya.

Vanya (who cried when they stepped on ants as kids, who never went on missions, who never even learned how to fight) was, logically, the one who killed Harold. It was such a change from the sister he’d always known that it takes him over an hour to actually come to the conclusion and partially accept it. 

Maybe Diego had just never really known her. Maybe they’d just never actually spent enough time together. Maybe she  _ was _ the type to commit a murder.

She’d changed since they’d left the Academy. All of them had. 

Some more than others.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

When Vanya trudges into the Academy, eyes red and hands shaking, it sets everyone on edge.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she gasps. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

Klaus watches Luther from the shadows as his larger brother descends the staircase towards Vanya. Allison had been his favorite sibling. Everyone knew that. Even though, after Diego had told them all what he thought actually happened in that cabin, they’d collectively agreed to try and treat Vanya like a sibling instead of a time bomb (a  _ killer _ ) it didn’t mean Luther would actually listen.

There’s been no sight of Allison’s ghost at all. Klaus keeps getting begged to talk to her, to find out the real story. Every time he has to say that he can’t.

He sees the disappointment in their eyes every single time. He doesn’t know how to explain that he can’t talk to someone who hasn’t even appeared yet.

Vanya’s choking out the story of the cabin through tears ( _ little sister who cried when ants got stepped on — except Allison wasn’t an ant, was she? _ ) until Luther holds up a hand to stop her, opening his arms wide as if to offer her some sort of hug.

Klaus knows what comes next. Luther squeezing tighter and tighter, no more air, slumping to the floor, boneless. It’s a surprisingly familiar tactic.

He turns away before he can watch what he’s seen (and even felt) so many times before. 

Nobody expects the house to start shaking. Nobody expects it to stop the moment Vanya loses consciousness.

Because she’s ordinary. She’s powerless.

Right?

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

How had Luther found out about the old cage?

Ben had never been in it himself. He’d only heard stories of it, stories based on Vanya’s vague memories of a quarantine (one that had never really been a quarantine, had it?) at four years old.

People were always surprised what a ghost remembered.  _ Everything. _ Without a life to live, memories of the past ended up much more vivid. Vanya had probably forgotten the whole business as well. (At least, until now.) Ben hadn’t. He couldn’t.

His sister (his  _ only _ sister) bangs on the cell’s glass window, begging soundlessly to be let out.

It’s a soundproof room. All she can hear is her own cries for help.

Why had Reginald needed a soundproof cell, and why had it  _ always _ been Vanya’s?

There’s a connection to be made. Something between the cell… and the house shaking while Luther was knocking Vanya out… and Allison’s death…. and Jenkins’s death….

Is it too much to even propose that maybe little ordinary Number Seven has powers of her own?

He mentions it to Klaus. Klaus mentions it to the group. They brush him off.

“She  _ killed Allison. _ Does it even matter if she does? She’s staying in there.” Despite everyone’s protests,  _ literally everyone’s _ , Luther’s vote is the only one that truly counts. He’s the only one who’s large enough to block the entire door from them, and the only one strong enough to simply carry them away.

Vanya bangs on the door and pleads for help and nobody does a thing. Not even the ones who can.

All Ben can do is watch, and if his heart could still beat, it would be breaking.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

There had been two hours where Five thought he’d done it. No more apocalypse. The world was safe.

Now his childhood home was in ruins on the ground.

The headline on the paper hadn’t  _ changed _ and the eye might have been the fuse but his  _ sister _ was the bomb that destroyed the world, and the moon was shining brighter than he’d seen it in decades but it was all going to end  _ tonight _ if he didn’t find a way to stop Vanya.

Whatever way was necessary.

He sits at a bowling alley with his siblings (the three that are left, anyway) and debates the end of the world, the powers none of them were ever told about, how her face had been completely blank as she hurled Pogo into the rack of antlers set on the wall over the fireplace. 

The Vanya all of them knew was gone. In her place was… someone else. Someone with white eyes and the ability to bring down an entire mansion in minutes.

Five doesn’t want to kill her. He’s already lost enough siblings today. (He refuses to think about Allison, because if he thinks about it he has to accept it. That he finally got her back only to lose her just days later, without even a real  _ reunion. _ )

He’ll do whatever it takes to save the world. And he’s sure that will extend as far as killing Vanya Hargreeves.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The world is washed in white in her eyes. It coats the stage like a film, like someone is shining the spotlights through the sheet music on her stand instead of from the ceiling, like her vision is fading.

Allison is dead at her hands (the same hands that are playing the violin now, the same bow that slit her throat-  _ no don’t think about that _ ) and her siblings want her to join Allison. So she keeps playing, because Vanya might not have anything else but she still has first chair in her orchestra.

It’s all going well until Luther, Diego, Klaus and Five try to rush her, mid performance.

It doesn’t even take a thought. She sends them flying backwards with a rush of light ( _ don’t think about killing Allison don’t think about her _ ) then scatters the audience and the orchestra with another. 

They can’t stop her. They aren’t allowed to. This is her concert, the only thing she has, and she’ll play it to the end.

Through the white haze and the light (distantly, she registers that  _ she’s _ the light; apparently she can glow now, how about that) she can see them regrouping. Klaus summons Ben to take out the gunmen lining the walls (....when did they get there? and since when could he do that?) and her music barely stutters. All she has left is the violin, and she’ll keep playing.

They’re back to rushing at her, and Vanya knows awareness is only coming to her in bits and pieces now (she’s too far gone, throwing herself so far into her music that she’s losing herself) but she knows she needs to  _ stop them. _

They’re too close.

They force her to stop playing.

She holds them up with the light, holds them away from her. They can’t hurt her anymore. They can’t escape her. They can’t take away the last thing she has left.

They keep struggling. All four of them keep trying to escape. She can’t let them escape.

The world is awash in white and they keep trying to  _ escape _ so she holds them tighter and tighter until they all stop struggling.

And then she realizes she can’t hear their heartbeats anymore.

In an instant, she lowers her brothers (the last of her  _ family _ ) to the ground. Her powers fade on their own.

Even if her family wants her dead, they’re still her  _ family. _

There are no heartbeats.

There never will be again.

( _ Even a failed performance comes to the finale. _ )

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

They’re all dead.

She killed them.

Her family is dead.

It’s worse than any apocalypse.

Vanya Hargreeves picks up her violin and leaves the Icarus Theater as fast as possible.

**Author's Note:**

> so long to all my friends, every one of them met tragic ends....
> 
> talk to me on tumblr: [@sparrowvanya](https://sparrowvanya.tumblr.com/)


End file.
